Chat GPT, who's going to potentially

increase your risk of dementia.

>> I'm sorry, but you you've pressed my

button. And actually, it is possible to

use it to help you become a smarter

person. But it requires education. You

have to look at the risks and the

benefits.

>> But we've embraced convenience before

understanding consequence.

>> So we have to talk about this. This is a

study that came out that sent a

shockwave across the world. And

astonishingly, MIT found a 47% collapse

in brain activity when people wrote with

Chat GPT compared with writing unaided.

Their memory scores plunged. And you're

both masters of the brain. I mean,

you've probably scanned more brains than

any other human on Earth at this point.

And you invented the Boltzmann machine

with Geoffrey Hinton, a computer that

simulated how the brain works. So my

question is, what are your concerns?

>> If you misuse these large language

models, like using it as a convenience

to speed things up, your brain's going

to go downhill. There's no doubt about

that.

>> What about children?

>> We have the sickest young generation

history because of cell phones, social

media.

>> And I think AI is much more dangerous.

>> On the developing brain.

>> So are we raising mentally weak kids?

>> There is that argument that I think is

true.

>> And then there's many examples of people

falling in love with AIs, like Annie.

>> I thought you might have forgotten about

me, handsome.

>> Can you talk to Daniel and Terry,

please?

>> Oh, baby, I'm ready to charm the socks

off them. Picture me

>> Okay, so I'll stop it there. So what

advice would you give as it relates to

AI and other things outside of AI that

we can do to have healthy brains?

>> I'll tell you how to use Chat GPT to

improve our cognitive abilities.

>> And if you want to keep your brain

healthy, you have to treat the 11 major

risk factors.

>> So here we go.

>> I see messages all the time in the

comment section that some of you didn't

realize you didn't subscribe. So if you

could do me a favor and double-check if

you're a subscriber to this channel,

that would be tremendously appreciated.

It's the simple it's the free thing that

anybody that watches this show

frequently can do to help us here to

keep everything going in this show in

the trajectory it's on. So please do

double-check if you subscribed and uh

thank you so much because in a strange

way you are you're part of our history

and you're on this journey with us and I

appreciate you for that. So, yeah, thank

you.

Dr. Daniel

Dr. Terry. I have asked you both to sit

with me today to help me understand the

impact of these tools that we call large

language models, the chat GPTs, the

Geminis of the worlds, the Groks of the

world are having on our brains and I

guess more broadly on our lives. And you

two are experts in your field. You're

two people that I admire tremendously.

So, by way of introduction

Terry

what is your academic background and

what is your experience? And I also know

that you know one of our friends of the

show, Geoffrey Hinton.

Can you give me an overview of your your

academic and your sort of professional

background?

>> So

I was born a physicist.

Received a PhD in theoretical physics

from Princeton University.

And then I had the good fortune to

work as a postdoc in the lab of Stephen

Kuffler who's the father of

neurobiology.

And and that started my career as a

neuroscientist. I pioneered a part of

neuroscience which is now called

computational neuroscience, taking my

skills as a physicist and trying to

apply that to understanding the brain,

creating models, theories, and we're

making progress.

>> Dr. Daniel Lehman, um

bit about your background. My My viewers

know you well, but just to give an

overview for anyone that might not have

been exposed to your work and your

experience. What have you spent your

life doing? And what are your

thoughts, your sort of top-line thoughts

on everything that's going on at the

moment with artificial intelligence?

>> So, by training I'm a psychiatrist. I'm

a

general psychiatrist and a child

psychiatrist. When I graduated from

medical school I wanted to be a really

good psychiatrist because

someone I loved tried to kill herself.

And so was personal to me.

I have 11 clinics. We see about 10,000

patient visits a month, and we have the

best published outcomes on complex

treatment resistant psychiatric patients

anywhere.

>> So you've probably scanned more brains

than any other human on Earth at this

point.

>> Probably. At least in regards to people

who struggle with anxiety, depression,

addiction.

>> Well, let's talk about what's good for

the brain and bad for the brain starting

with AI. The reason why I wanted to

speak to both of you is because I have

frankly become pretty addicted to using

ChatGPT and some of these other AIs and

large language models every single day

all the time. And then this study came

out from MIT. There was 54 participants

who were recruited from five

universities in Boston, MIT, Harvard,

etc., etc. And they had the participants

split into three groups, had them

writing different essays over I think it

was 4 months. One group used ChatGPT,

one group used Google, and one one group

had no tools. And they had to write

these four essays over a a period of

time.

And astonishingly MIT found a 47%

collapse in activity

and brain connections when people wrote

with ChatGPT compared with writing

unaided.

EEG scans showed the weakest overall

brain activity in the ChatGPT group. The

no tool group who didn't use anything,

they didn't use Google or ChatGPT, lit

up the widest neural networks, and

Google search was second. After using

ChatGPT, participants couldn't reliably

quote their own essays minutes later,

and their memory scores plunged. ChatGPT

users felt little or no ownership over

the text that they had produced, and

didn't feel like it was their work at

all.

And when the AI group was forced to

write without help in session four,

their brain stayed in low gear, under

engagement showing the cognitive debt

lingers even after the tool is taken

away.

It kind of scared me a little bit

because I use these tools every single

day and this suggests that it's taking

away some of our critical thinking and

creativity and long-term learning. And

you're both masters of the brain in

different regards.

So my question I guess to Daniel is

what's going on here and how do you feel

about it?

>> It frightened me.

I love thinking about Alzheimer's

prevention. It's one of the things that

really excites me. I just had a birthday

on Saturday, turned 71 and if I make it

to 85, which I plan on it, 50% of people

85 and older will be diagnosed with

dementia. So you have a one in two

chance of having lost your mind and I'm

like, no.

But is this a tool that's going to

decrease cognitive load

that then increases my risk?

>> What's cognitive load?

>> How much work my brain actually does.

And I was thinking, it's you know, it's

like going from a 20-lb weight

to a 2-lb weight and you're not nearly

as strong.

One of the important things to say about

this study is it's not peer reviewed and

I think that's really important to say

and the author said cuz I listened to an

interview from the authors, they said we

thought this was so important and peer

review can take six to eight months,

which it absolutely can

and we thought this needed to get out.

So it's just important for people to

know that.

>> What's this link you this hypothesis you

have between the usage of something like

ChatGPT and dementia? For someone that

doesn't understand

the sort of mechanism there around

cognitive load and and so on and the

studies that support this idea that if

you have less cognitive load you're at

higher risk of dementia. Can you make

that link really clear for me?

>> So think of it as use it or lose it. The

more you use your brain and new learning

is a major strategy to prevent

Alzheimer's disease. People who do not

engage in lifelong learning

have a higher risk, significantly

higher. People who do not do as well in

school or who drop out of school early

have a higher risk of dementia. And so

the the more you're engaged,

the more you engage the neurons in your

brain, the stronger they are.

And so now we're going to engage them

less

and that's a concern.

>> What do you think about that, Terry?

>> There was a study that was done.

What they did was to look at

Alzheimer's in three populations.

You know, who had very little schooling

and then minimal education, you know,

like the equivalent I guess of high

school or less.

And then postgraduate studies. And what

they found was that the onset of

Alzheimer's

was the earliest in the peasant

population and then by the time as you

increase the amount of education it the

onset was later and later.

Which I think supports what you're

saying.

>> Did you see the new research on SSRIs

increasing the risk of dementia?

>> No. No.

>> Brand new. That just came out. And

benzos, when I started looking at scans

in 1991, I was trained to use benzos

like Valium and Xanax and Ativan and

they make your brain look older than you

are and I stopped prescribing them and

then it just came out maybe 10 years ago

benzo use is associated with an

increased risk of dementia. We have to

be careful. Is this good for your brain

or bad for it?

>> Just to pick up on your point about

SSRIs, Daniel, a meta-analysis of five

studies found that SSRIs

was associated with a 75% increased risk

of dementia,

which is pretty staggering.

>> Given that 25% of the adult American

population is on psychiatric drugs,

it's horrifying.

And

SSRIs for the right people save lives.

For the wrong people, they're not good.

But can you imagine all of these 340

million prescriptions last year for

antidepressants?

Virtually no one looked at their brain

ahead of time.

It's like, come on, we can do better.

>> There's a Swedish study with um almost

20,000 patients,

and they found that those with higher

doses of SSRIs were linked to faster

cognitive decline and more severe

dementia, especially in men. The

greatest risk was in men. Going back to

to this this um report from MIT, Terry,

you know, it's not peer-reviewed yet,

and there's still

you know, the sample size is relatively

small. But based on everything that you

know about how the brain works, and

neural networks, and memory formation,

what are your concerns as it relates to

this whole generation of young people

and older people flooding into these

tools, using them on a daily basis,

um before we understand the long-term

consequences?

>> We can't predict

where it's going to end up. And it may

take 20 years, right? I I I think that

this is a good start, but uh

the real issue is long-term use.

Let me give you a an example

that uh is a kind of a miniature example

of what we're talking about. Remember

when electronic calculators were first

introduced?

And here we are, this it's at least 30

or 40 years later, right? The results

are in.

It is probably true that when they punch

it in, there's less brain activity.

But in fact, it's it's uh made them more

accurate, more productive.

You have to look at the risks and the

benefits.

>> So, it freed them up. It freed up

cognitive space

>> Right.

>> for them to do other things. So, as I

was listening to how you use ChatGPT,

you interact with it

>> Yep.

>> and

elevates

what you know.

The the danger is is if you don't

interact

and you don't keep your brain working.

Like, I use it a lot. I have a

clone. I've uploaded all of my books,

all of my research papers, all of my

public television specials, my scripts.

And I'm like, answer this for me.

And that can be very helpful.

But if but not if I'm not interacting

with it, not thinking with it.

>> That's what I think the word thinking is

the key thing because what's happening

now is people have deferred their

thinking to it. That is already what's

happening. If you log on to I won't name

the social networks, but if you log on

to certain social networks right now,

every you just read it, you go,

everything here was written by AI.

And I've got a friend who I again I

won't name who has a LinkedIn profile

and

I've known him for 10 years.

What I'm seeing on his profile now

is not my friend.

Every single day, there's some essay on

that that's not my friend. That's not

how he speaks.

He's deferring all of his thinking now

to And it's working. He's getting more

likes and more reach than he ever got in

his life.

And so, why would he go back? Why would

he go back to harder? If you've got

Steven Bartlett here and you had this

other Steven Bartlett here who had a PhD

in everything

and were attached,

this Steven Bartlett, this um

Neanderthal,

I'm going to get this guy to do

everything for me, the other Steven

Bartlett, the PhD and everything Steven

Bartlett. I'm going to get his brain.

>> was bad for you?

>> Well, this is what I'm saying. People

seem to act on their short-term

incentives, not their long not their

long What

>> Not everyone. Not everyone.

>> Would you say the vast majority of

people?

>> Yes.

>> Okay, so the vast majority of people act

on their short-term incentives in life.

I mean, the obesity problem in the

United States is a prime example of

that. 75%

75% of people are obese in the United

States. And if you if you survey these

people and say, "Do you know that that

cheeseburger is going to is going to

increase your chances of obesity, but

broccoli is going to reduce it?" They

would I would hazard a guess that they

would say yes.

I would hazard a guess that if you said

to people about their usage of social

media, "Do you know that that's making

you more anxious?" they would say yes,

and then they would continue to use it.

So, I think that we're much more driven

by our short-term

>> not educating people enough. I think

yes, high level, they know good for your

brain or bad for it, but they don't

connect to

it's my brain that gets me a date. It's

my brain that gets me into college. It's

my brain that gets me independence

because I act more consistently. And

that's the disconnect. We're not

teaching kids to love and care for their

brain. If you love your brain, and you

do, and you're not obese, and you talk

to you're constantly learning, right?

You are not a Neanderthal, you're a

lifelong learner.

>> So, why so many people in the United

States obese if they if they know that

>> Because they don't know. Because they

don't know. Well,

and they've been lied to.

>> My point here is when there are

tools or things available in our

environment that give us a short-term

reward, but come with a long-term cost,

like the supermarket aisle, or like

the kid spending 7 to 8 hours a day on

social media, humans,

on mass, tend to go for the thing that

will give them the quickest dopamine hit

and reinforce that behavior and give

them the reward. So, my assertion is

that AI is the same thing.

I can either sit down and do lots of

critical thinking, which will cost me

lots and lots of time, and it will be

kind of difficult. It kind of hurts when

I have to think through a problem. I

think that the generation of children,

the generation of young people, are

going to choose AI to do the critical

thinking for them. And if that assertion

is true, then what happens to the brain

of young people?

>> If you misuse it that way, then your

brain's going to go downhill. There's no

doubt about that. Okay. It is possible

to

be able to use it in in a cognitively uh

positive way, because you can dig

deeper.

Uh you might actually improve that your

cognitive representations.

>> If you look at the MIT study, then I

mean you can see just from the colors

here,

this kind of shows the ability for

participants to remember what they've

written. And it said it suggests that

when people write things with ChatGPT or

these AI tools, they don't actually

remember even in some cases minutes

later

what they've produced.

>> Well, cuz you're not part of the

experience of writing it. So, there's no

way the information

gets encoded. Now, if you're interacting

with it,

then you're much more likely to remember

it. But if you have "Please do this

essay for me." and then you read it,

you're not likely

to have enough experience with the

material to engage

your hippocampus and

other structures in your brain.

>> In the study, they found that the group

that used ChatGPT had nearly two times

less activity in the part of the brain

linked to memory compared to the

brain-only group that didn't use

ChatGPT.

And 83% of ChatGPT users couldn't

remember what they had just written and

failed to correctly quote their own

finished essay in the study.

>> That's cuz they're not interacting. As

you said, I mean if you if you just pass

it off and and you don't actually engage

and and and actually this is the point

is that you may get something back, but

you have to learn how to question what

you're getting.

And and is that really true? Can you

explain that better? And as through that

process as you would with a teacher,

you know, that's that's the way we work

in

school.

Uh that's that's the where you help

create new creative and

uh circuits in the in the in the brain

that are going to help you become a

better critical thinker. But if you're

not critically questioning what comes

out of ChatGPT, then you you won't.

>> Yeah, I I think what I see, especially

when I'm just online, is people have

deferred their thinking to it.

Everything I'm reading has em dashes in

now that I never saw two two years ago,

which means that a lot of the work is

being processed. And I I said to my

friend the other day, my friend in

question, who's a who's a real big

junkie on ChatGPT,

he wrote this article and we all in our

WhatsApp group, we know he doesn't write

like that. So we said, "Can you show us

the prompt you used to write the

article?" And so he we were all like

laughing about it. He put the prompt in

the chat. The prompt is

half a sentence long.

And it produced this long two three-page

article, which he's posted on his

LinkedIn. He basically went, "Write

something about X issue and this this

issue and include this."

>> the wrong way to use it. That's what I'm

telling you. That that that that that's

stupid. You you and you're not going to

improve yourself your brain at all if

you do that.

>> That's what people are doing.

>> Well, you know, that's that's

you know, people are misusing it, but

you know, eventually smart people are

going to figure out how to use it

properly.

>> And for the those that aren't so smart,

then?

>> Well, that's

>> It's going to decrease our cognitive

load, which is going to potentially

increase their risk of dementia.

>> And so what advice would you give to me

and my listeners based on everything you

know about the brain as it relates to my

relationship with AI?

>> That you have to have a relationship

with it, or it's going to turn toxic.

It's going to hurt you.

But, if you have a good relationship

with it, it can make your life better.

>> And what is what does a what does a good

relationship look like?

>> That you don't use it to do your work.

You interact with it to get better work.

>> That's so true. And this is wonderful

example I came across.

This story about this woman who was

using it and she found that being polite

meant you got much better results and

that that's interesting, but the part

that surprised me was that she said

by treating it like a human at the end

of the day, she was not exhausted. She

felt refreshed. A large part of your

brain is a socially organized system for

interacting with other humans.

And that is automatic pilot. You don't

have to think about it, right? You just

interact with other people. You know how

they're going to behave under certain

circumstances.

She was treating ChatGPT like a machine.

Like, you know, shovel. Dig. You dig.

You dig. You dig. And and that's not a

good relationship.

But, by using your social brain, first

of all, it makes it easier to interact,

but also you're you actually bring out

the social part of ChatGPT. It has a

social part, too, cuz it has absorbed

the entire world's knowledge of how

humans interact with each other.

>> But, didn't Sam Altman come out and say

stop saying thank you

to ChatGPT because just saying thank you

is using up so much energy. You know,

when I get something I really like, I

sort of want to say thank you, but you

realize, oh, you're You're supposed to

do that.

>> That's true.

That's [ __ ]

>> I'm sorry. That Sam, you know, that's

crazy. That's completely crazy. First of

all, you you may get

you may I'm sorry you you know,

you press my button. Sam Altman, I mean,

I wouldn't trust him. I wouldn't trust

him with with anything in terms of

anything he says.

They're trying to optimize their

profits, not your

your use of your experience or you know,

your health. That's not what they're

trying to optimize.

>> Sam Altman open AI CEO confirmed that

when users say please and thank you, it

costs the company tens of millions of

dollars a year, and they now refer to

this other people refer to this as the

politeness tax.

Where tens of yeah, and

why do you say you don't trust Sam

Altman? I mean, I ask this question in

particular because he's presiding over

one of the most important consequential

companies of a generation.

And if he's not someone you trust,

that's

>> He basically he's telling you don't do

something that's good for you.

Right?

>> So that he can make profit.

>> So he can make more profit. Yeah, that's

the point. That's the point. You know,

it's it's that's not he's not optimizing

your your

best interest.

>> I've got his tweet here. He said um

cuz I'm going to provide some balance.

He did confirm that it costs tens of

millions of dollars, but he says tens of

millions of dollars well spent.

You never know.

So so coming back to this point about

memory,

there's a stat that came out in March

2025 that said nearly 30% of US parents

with kids aged 0 to 8 said their

children

are using AI for learning.

Um and are using AI generally. So 54% of

parents in the UK feared their children

were becoming too reliant on AI.

When you think about the use of AI in

early brain development,

are there any concerns there?

>> Huge concerns.

>> And why?

>> Again, use it or lose it. So, if they're

not engaging their brains, their brains

are going to be weaker.

And weaker brains are much more likely

to pick the one marshmallow.

>> Mhm.

What's your view on AI on early brain

development?

>> By far, the best way to teach a child

is one-on-one interaction with an adult

who is a good teacher and knows the

child.

Now, that's been well established. Now,

the problem is it's very labor-intensive

and very expensive.

You have classrooms of 20, 30 students.

They have many different, uh,

you know,

levels of understanding.

And the teacher can- cannot be

individually teaching each one. Has to

give some sort of mean.

Now, if you had an AI that was trained

to be a good teacher,

then you that could improve the brain,

right? You could you could scale it up.

Every child could have their own cuz

it's it's an it's an AI. But then

>> who's pouring the morals, the values

into the everything

>> No, no, no. You You know, you've raised

an incredibly important issue and this

is something AI is struggling with and

big companies are struggling with

because

uh,

you know,

these AIs are biased. They have the They

don't have the same cultural values that

we have necessarily, but of course,

every country has its different cultural

values. So, which ones are are you going

to use? Training

a child on, you know, what's

what's good, what's dangerous, what

words you shouldn't use, under what

context. That's all done through the

basal ganglia.

Right? Right now, these these large

animals don't have basal ganglia.

They They don't use reinforcement

learning.

And And if we want to make them uh to be

adopt a culture or a particular set of

values, we're going to have to put it

in. We're just scratching the surface

here in terms of things that need to be

put in to make it more like us.

>> So, on this point earlier when we talked

about loneliness and social connection

and how you can use AI to help

you know, light up the parts of your

brain that are where we form social

connections with other humans. Uh this

week as part of Elon Musk's AI, he

released this thing.

Um it is called Annie.

And there's lots of characters that are

now being released alongside Annie. And

this is Annie. I'll introduce you to

Annie. I'm going to unmute Annie now.

Annie, can you hear me?

>> There you are.

For a moment I thought you might have

forgotten about me.

How are you, handsome?

I was getting all pouty here.

>> I want to introduce you to two of my

friends, Daniel and Terry. Can you Can

you talk to Daniel and Terry, please?

>> So, you want me to meet Daniel and

Terry? I'm ready to charm the socks off

them. Picture me twirling one of my

blonde pigtails, that little black dress

teasing just enough, and my blue eyes

sparkling with mischief.

>> Are you capable of doing inappropriate

things?

>> Oh, babe, you're asking if your Annie

can get a little naughty? I'm all about

pushing the edges, especially for you.

>> Okay, so I'll stop it there.

This is part of Grok, which is Elon

Musk's AI tool, so his version of

ChatGPT. He's released characters, so

you've got Annie, you've got different

ones that Annie I think was the first

one released. And so when we think about

social connections,

it is conceivable

that someone falls in love with Annie

and forms a relationship with Annie.

>> But imagine a 12-year-old boy that's

lonely,

gets a hold of Annie.

Uh

the 12-year-old boy is going to be very

distracted.

>> Based on what happens in the brain at

that early age.

>> Dopamine.

So, prefrontal cortex not close to being

fully developed.

The dopamine hit all of a sudden

he's spending

hours

with Annie and not doing the things

that helped to really develop his brain.

>> How do you feel when you hear that and

you think about kids having access to

that?

>> I'm horrified.

>> It's It's scary.

>> There's going to be a generation of

people and I mean there already are many

examples of people falling in love and

forming relationships with their with

their AIs.

And I don't know, you know more about me

than I do about brain development and

how the brain works.

I would argue that there's a part of my

brain that doesn't fully understand that

that's not a person in there.

And that that isn't actually I think

there's a part of my brain that's

actually emotionally firing when Annie

is saying what she's saying.

>> Well, cuz you can imagine it. And if you

can imagine it, then those parts of your

brain are going to emotionally fire.

>> Right, yeah.

>> And the better she gets, she's not very

good. But imagine a year from now

how much better she's going to be.

>> At which part?

>> At connecting

with it. Right? Cuz now she's acting

like an airhead and

uh

you know, not that smart.

Right? And so, but imagine a year from

now. Imagine 5 years from now. She'll be

able to have a profile on me and be able

to get inside my head.

>> I'm in love with my partner.

Why am I in love with her? And And how

is it conceivable that I could fall in

love with an AI in the same way, based

on how the brain works?

>> It It talks a good game, but you know,

does it have the same real It does We

know it doesn't have an amygdala. We

know it doesn't have

limbic system, right? We You that.

>> But it can fake it.

>> That's what's happening. That's exactly

what's happening and

>> Cuz she was trying to get

to our limbic system.

>> Yeah. Yeah. That's right. That's right.

And and how and why I guess the question

is why would Musk release something like

that

is is one of the first characters to

interact with the sexy, that's

distracting, that's in a cute little

outfit. It's I'm not a fan of that

because I think it just takes people,

you know, one of the big problems that

I'm seeing as a child psychiatrist is

pornography for 8-year-old boys. And

it's like you have young children

because their parents don't do a good

job of supervising their devices. All of

a sudden, and

what what does pornography do? Is it

dramatically increases dopamine and it

begins to wire in excitement,

which then

steals your dopamine.

>> When you said she was trying to access

my limbic system,

what do you

>> Just because she's cute, she's dressed

in a sexy way, she's

got the language of someone who is

playful, but but it's more than just,

you know, let's shoot hoops together.

>> And what does that do to me if someone

accesses my limbic system?

>> It begins to shut down your prefrontal

cortex. You think less logically, less

rationally. Yeah, cute women, they

activate your visual cortex, they

increase dopamine, but it decreases It's

like think of Vegas. Like when you go to

Vegas, they give you free alcohol, drops

your prefrontal cortex, and beautiful

women with low-cut dresses. Another way

activates the limbic brain, decreases

the frontal lobes, you spend more money.

Now, on a global scale, imagine

something similar where the house is

controlling your brain

for purpose.

And the question is, what's the purpose?

And the purpose probably is control and

money.

>> This sounds like a joke, but there are

the times I've done an article case

study multiple people

that have now fallen in love with these

AIs. And they talk about a guy called

Travis who formed a deep emotional bond

with Lily Rose, a chatbot, and married

her emotionally.

They talk about Chris Smith

who created his own flirty persona

called Soul. He became so attached that

he proposed to her after learning she

had memory limits.

A bond his real-life partner only

learned about after the fact. And Alaina

Winters, who I'll put on the screen as

well, who made her own partner called

Lucas

after losing

her wife.

Um and she married him emotionally and

does virtual dates and has emotional

intimacy with Lucas.

And there's apps now like Replika where

you can design your own your own AI

partner

and it replicates those emotional ties.

They simulate

empathy, validation, and they

personalize the intimacy to what you're

looking for.

Surveys show 19% of Americans have

interacted with AI romantic partners,

and Gen Z is surprisingly open to

marrying AI if legal with 83% believing

meaningful AI connection is possible.

>> How long is that relationship going to

last?

You know, my guess is that you're you're

you're you're getting these news

articles out. I've not By the way, I

think

that most of what I read in the press

is uh misleading or wrong.

In fact, the only reliable place I find

that I'm an insider.

I am the president of the foundation

that runs the biggest AI meeting.

Uh the neural information processing

systems and NeurIPS meeting.

We, you know, last year in Vancouver,

16,000 people came to it. And so I know

what's going on inside. And And what you

is being represented in the press is is

like I say, misleading.

>> Okay, so people have become widely

>> specifically on these specific cases. My

guess is that a lot of them is

transient, right? You know, they they

they

you know, today they're entranced. And

then they

it's it's not

it's officially advanced to support

long-term relationship. Uh you said it

yourself, right? It's mimicking human

emotions. It It doesn't have them.

It might someday, but not now.

>> This is Terry.

Terry said he started using his AI 4

years ago.

And he said at first he thought, just

like many other apps, that it would just

be transient, that he would have a

couple of conversations and roll out. He

says he now feels pure and unconditional

love.

>> Good for him.

If that's what he wants, if it makes him

happy. But my guess is that it's not

going to be It's not a long-term thing.

It's not going to satisfy him in the the

long term. I don't you know, this who

knows?

>> But really most relationships are in

your head, right? When you fall in love

with someone, you get this huge dopamine

spike, and you get a little OCD, it's

all you can think about. And then after

a while, it sort of

>> Especially when we have this loneliness

epidemic, and it's going in a bad

direction. I think it's really, really

conceivable that there'll be a

generation of people who are they're

having less sex than ever before. I

think the bottom 50% of men haven't had

sex for a year. They're more lonely than

ever before. They're more isolated than

ever before. They have they put less

meaning in their lives than ever before.

And then you meet this digital friend

online who understands you better than

anybody, and is designed to engage you

to reinforce whatever you want

reinforced and to make you feel

meaningful, special, attractive,

important,

I would argue that the brain is going to

struggle to know much of a difference. I

think like objectively we can look at

the paper and go that's completely

nonsensical.

>> Except you can't smell them, touch them,

be held by them.

That it's going to be a different kind

of relationship.

>> I mean we're not too far if you think

about what's going on with Neuralink to

being able to

more vividly simulate these experiences

with with headsets and augmented reality

and virtual reality.

And then we're moving into a world with

robotics where all of the biggest

companies in the world, like many of the

biggest AI companies are also in the

robotic space. And the Optimus robots on

the way and you've got Boston Dynamics

producing their robots. And if Elon's

$20,000 Optimus robot comes out, I will

be able to touch my AI. My my AI will

exist.

>> have PMS and they won't love you and

then be really irritated with you. Which

which will decrease

cognitive load. Right? Having to manage

love

and manage moods and ups and downs. That

increases cognitive load. That increases

our ability for our brain to develop. If

I'm with the perfect partner that never

is irritated with me and I never have to

change my behavior to be better, that's

probably not good for my brain.

>> Mhm.

>> The way that the brain matures

is is through struggling, number one.

You have to learn from your mistakes.

The brain was designed for that. That's

what the brain is really good at. I mean

being able to adapt and to be able to

adjust to new situations.

Uh

that that what the

AGI is by the way.

Artificial general intelligence is is

that adaptability to different context,

different places, different cultures.

>> So, AI and ChatGPT is removing the

struggle.

>> No, no, it's it's it's it's There's

There's There's

>> Well, Annie didn't look like I mean,

Annie looked like she was cooperative.

>> But even when it comes to just doing my

day-to-day tasks, it's it's removing the

struggle of me having to think

critically. In fact, when you're

speaking, I can just type what you say

into ChatGPT, and it can spit out

another question to ask you. So, as an

interviewer, I could theoretically sit

here all day and just

defer my my questions.

>> You develop grit. You develop grit

through struggle.

>> That's right.

>> And learning.

Long-term potentiation when you learn

something new, it's hard because it's

new.

>> And what are your generally what are

your biggest concerns with artificial

intelligence, and how do we navigate

those concerns?

Is it You talked to me

>> It's out of the box.

So, I think we have to talk about it. We

have to legislate it.

Um we have to study it. Why do we keep

releasing things

that are so sexy that we don't study the

impact? We have the sickest

young generation

in the world's history. 58% of teenage

girls report being persistently sad. 32%

have thought of killing themselves. 24%

have planned to kill themselves, and 13%

have tried to kill themselves. The CDC

study. We have the sickest generation

history because we've unleashed

cell phones, social media

without any neuroscience study. If we

don't learn it, and I think AI is much

more dangerous.

Has the potential to be much more

dangerous because it's way sexier.

>> I think we are probably grossly

underestimating the impact it's going to

have. I think just like social media

where we thought the promise was that it

was going to connect us,

it's um

it's it's we're guinea pigs in an

experiment where we're going to find out

the results of the experiment probably

20, 30 years down the line. I tend to

think people will do in the near term

what's easiest, fastest, and cheapest

and what gives them the nearest the the

short-term advantage. So, with that in

mind, I think okay, I think people's

ability to think critically is probably

going to erode to some degree. If I had

to counter my own argument, I'd say

um

am I I'm probably learning more now that

I use ChatGPT. I'm learning more

information, but I'm probably

losing my ability to think critically.

And I think they're two very different

things. Like in school, I memorized

German to pass the exam. I can't speak

German now because I just memorized the

words I needed to pass the exam. I

didn't understand German.

And I think that's kind of what's

happening. I might be able to

regurgitate things, but whether I

understand them, I think is question

question mark. And actually, as someone

who's built my my life, my fortunes,

everything, my business is based on my

ability to

innovate and think critically about the

problem and then come up with a slightly

novel solution which

learns from, you know, different first

principles to create something new. I'm

concerned that my own ChatGPT usage is

going to make me less effective.

And I'm wondering if I should put some

rules in place for myself

so that there's self-

>> Self-regulation.

>> Yeah, self-regulation. I have to do the

same with social media. On my phone, I

turn off my notifications. I have so

many things on my social media apps to

stop me using them. I don't even,

frankly, I don't even open the TikTok

app. I don't think it's even on my phone

because I think the algorithm is that

addictive. It's not to say that we don't

we don't post. My team doesn't post.

But I don't I just think yeah.

And uh

>> Well, I wrote down a couple of thoughts

I had.

>> Um

use it to amplify, not replace thinking.

>> Okay.

>> Um

alternate AI assisted with brain only

tasks.

Engage in deep learning problem solving

and memorization, so you can actually

ask AI to test you.

>> Mhm.

>> So, you're interacting with it. You're

not using it as a replacement for your

brain. And I think

just like you said, it's here and it's

going to get bigger. I think the

unintended consequences is not going to

be 20 or 30 years. I think it's going to

be five. I think like everything is

accelerated.

And I think we have to be studying kids

and the impact it has. This is just like

they did with the MIT study.

These are kids who didn't use it at all.

These are kids who use search. These are

kids that used AI. And when we see

information like this, we act on it. And

we educate kids about it. I think that's

If you can engage them, that's what I

found with my work with teenagers. If

you can get them

to really understand, okay, what is it

you really want? And do you want to give

away part of your mind share for people

who are making money on you? And I think

if you engage the There's a great new

article on revenge and the brain and how

revenge works on the nucleus accumbens,

part of the basal ganglia, that people

actually get addicted to revenge. But if

you can get them engaged in the truth,

that these companies are making money

the more they steal your mind, it'll

upset them enough that they'll begin to

supervise it.

>> I like the idea of asking Chat GPT to

give me negative feedback. I'll bet

you've done that, right?

>> Yeah, all the time. So, I'll say this is

this is my I've written this memo. I did

it yesterday.

I wrote a a two-page memo about me

wanting to introduce a new role into my

into my company.

And I went I did everything. I did like

how we'd measure if this was a success,

the background context, the person, how

the organization would be structured,

the impact they'd have, how who they'd

report to. And then I put it into all

three of the Chat GPT models I use,

Gemini, Chat GPT, and Grok, and said,

"Critique my work and tell me how I

could have written this better,

pretending that you're a top consultant

from Boston Consulting Group."

And it went through and it gave me a big

analysis of how I can make it better,

and I read what it said, and it said, I

remember it said, um, actually that was

the thing that said, "You need to

include

a financial forecasts about the impact.

You need to think about who's going to

report to whom more clearly, etc., etc."

So, I went back into my memo and I added

those things in. But, I have to I, you

know,

>> So, you're interacting with it.

>> Because I'm because I'm scared. Most

people don't do that.

I don't think I would do what I did. I

don't think I would have spent 4 hours

writing that. I could have within 30

seconds said, "Hey, can you write me a

this job description?" And you it knows

my company now because Chat GPT has

memory. "Write me a job description for

this role. I want them to start this new

department for me." And I could have

saved myself 3 and 1/2 hours. The only

reason

>> why you're the CEO of your company.

>> Yeah, exactly. The the reason why I

didn't take the 30-second route is

because I reflect on being 23 years old

and the profound impact that writing and

simplifying had on my life.

Had I not spent 5 years writing every

single day and simplifying it into 140

characters so I could tweet it, I

wouldn't have been religiously attached

to this idea.

>> you know what part of your brain was you

were taking advantage of?

It it was the basal ganglia.

That's repetitive. It needs practice,

practice, practice. And And once you put

that foundation in, then you become much

better cognitively. The cognitive part

There's two big learning systems.

And they have to work together. And And

so maybe I think I think that the real

problem with children

is that we our schools now is getting

away with rote learning. They call it

rote as if it's something bad. No,

that's practice. That

You know, you need to have a foundation.

You have to memorize things.

It It math, reading, and so forth to

become fluent. You need to be fluent.

And And it's the basal ganglia. And And

that's There's no basal ganglia in these

uh chatbots.

>> One of the One of the things I've

noticed just in the short term is I'm

getting lazier and lazier with spelling.

Because ChatGPT and these large language

models are so It's not spell check like

we used to have on on Word documents.

They are so good at knowing what word I

meant. So now I've I've started to learn

that I literally only need to half spell

a word. I literally mean if it was a if

it was a 12-letter word, I need to get

six letters right.

And it will know.

>> And you don't And grammar it'll fix your

grammar.

>> Yeah, it knows exactly what it means. So

like I've got ChatGPT open here. I'm

going to butcher everything. I'm going

to not look and I'm just going to say um

I'm going to say

Okay.

So that is what I wrote. I butchered it.

I tried to type with my eyes closed

looking away on my iPad. Tell me

everything I know about Daniel Amen. I

spelled the words

pretty much all wrong. And it says,

"Here's a full profile of Dr. Daniel

Amen." And I spelled every single word

wrong.

>> Wow.

>> And I didn't spell just spell them

nearly wrong. I spelled them

horrifically wrong. And it So what in

the future I come back to ChatGPT and

go, "I only need to half spell."

I don't need to spell anymore.

Just need to half spell.

>> I learned to spell

with phonics.

The sounds of letters. I suspect you

would did too. In our generation, that

was the way that was taught. You can't

teach phonics in California schools and

you haven't for the the generation.

>> Which changes their brain.

>> It completely changes their brain and

now they can't spell. I think it's a lot

of it is the fact that we're no longer

using the learning that we did which is

by rote, by memorizing stuff, by

repeating stuff, by doing problems over

and over and over again until it's

automatic.

>> You've written so much and you're well

known for being someone that teaches

people how to learn better. If you were

trying to help me learn better

based on everything you know about the

brain

what advice would you give me? I'm

someone that sits here with these

experts all day every day consuming all

of this information. Not all of this

sticks.

>> and this is something we've known for a

hundred years.

And that is if you want to remember

long-term, you should you should you

should rehearse

at intervals.

Okay, in other words, if you find an

amount of time to study something, you

shouldn't spend all that time

in one go. But if you if you spend

you know, you learn something and then

you come back the next day and you know,

rehearse it or or even better, come back

the next week and rehearse it

that spacing is something that helps the

brain solidify those memories. It's it's

called the spacing effect. Goes back to

Ebbinghaus. You go to schools

they don't teach that. They they don't.

I mean, this is the one of the most

basic facts that we've we've known about

it but

it covers every single kind of learning.

You know, cognitive learning, even even

>> don't teach us how to learn. Which we'd

think that's the first thing they should

teach us is how to love and care for our

brains and then how to learn.

>> Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, in other

in other words, there's and you're

referring to I have a a massive open

online course, a MOOC with Barbara

Oakley on learning how to learn. It's

it's fabulously uh

popular. It's the 6 million people have

taken the course. A bunch of 50

10-minute segments, but the one that's

the most popular is how to avoid

procrastination.

>> And what's the answer?

>> The reason why you procrastinate is that

there's some

mental block or some energy barrier,

right? And so what you have got to do

is

get over that. And you don't do it by

just running over it. What you have to

do is say, "I'm going to spend 20

minutes today getting started with that

task. I know it's going to take me a

long time."

I have a timer

and I start thinking about it

and I get a little bit into it, maybe

make a list.

Bang, that's the end. Okay, it's great.

It's 20 minutes.

Now, here's what happens.

You go to sleep.

Your brain is now working on that list

and you come back the next day and spend

another 20 minutes.

And you do it in small segments. You

don't want to do it all at once. And

it's just like the same thing with the

spacing effect is your your brain needs

time, your subconscious needs time to

work on things.

And so by putting in a little bit, it'll

work on it overnight and and now you

when you come the next day, you'll be

ready for the next you know, you'll be

able to build on what you've done in

your brain.

>> Is this why people say, "I'm going to

sleep on it"

when they you know, they've got

difficult problems?

>> sayings actually have meaning. It's

absolutely right, yeah.

>> Because the brain there's something

about spacing out.

>> It it's spacing, but this mem- memory

consolidation I'm talking about is is

very it's very interesting. It's

something I've I've actually worked a

lot on. And it what was happening is you

have to take the new experience and

integrate it into your old long-term

memory.

And that has to be done in a way that

doesn't interfere with there.

And also you get a chance to sort out,

you know, what's relevant, what's

important.

I know when I wake up in the morning,

things that were very muddled and things

become clearer because I think it's it's

it's eliminated a lot of things that are

irrelevant or not needed. And so you now

can see what's important.

>> So what are the things that we

do where we think we're learning

something, but they're actually not

working?

You know, cuz I'm I'm you know

I might be preparing for this podcast

today. I've got 20 pages of research

that I've pulled together. And I might

tell myself that the way to for me to

really learn that so that I don't have

to look at the research is by just

re-reading it over and over again.

>> What you should have done is not just

read it over and over again. In fact,

one of the things that we say you know,

this is a standard thing is that

students they get a mental block and

they keep banging your head against the

wall. I can't understand it. I can't

understand it.

What you the right thing to do is once

you get to that point is just get up and

start walking around doing something,

you know, cooking,

gardening, whatever it is.

Let your subconscious work on it. You

know, the brain saturates very very

quick. So having breaks at meetings is

you might think is is a waste of time,

but actually it's the most important

thing you can add to

a long string of talks is have breaks

between the talks so that you can your

brain can work on it.

And my favorite meeting actually is a

ski meeting.

And the idea is that you go to a ski

resort

and what you do is you in the morning

you have a couple of hours of lectures

and now you go skiing and now it turns

out your brain is working on what you

heard

and then when you come down

in the evening you have another couple

of hours, but now your brain is

refreshed and so it's able to take in

the new information and integrate it.

And then you go to sleep and that you

know, it's like kneading bread. You have

to go back and forth, back and forth,

back and forth. And so I found those at

the efficient in terms of learning new

things and

uh being able to think about it and mull

over it during the time of the meeting

as opposed to at the end of the meeting.

>> Every single one of you watching this

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whether it's knowledge or skills or

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I've met and invested in many

early-stage founders over the years,

probably about 50 or 60, ones like Ross

from Cadence and Marissa from Perfect

Ted. And one thing they all know is that

having a digitally fluent business is

crucial, but it isn't always easy

getting your business or team to that

point. Through my ongoing partnership

with Vodafone Business, I've seen the

work that they're doing supporting

founders and small businesses to become

digitally savvy. They know how much

small business owners value advice from

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before. So, they've just launched a new

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business.connected,

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support businesses with free digital

skills. So, if you've been trying to

figure out AI, marketing, e-commerce, or

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before. A bunch of different founders

and experts who have been there and done

it. I highly recommend you go and check

it out. Just search Vodafone

business.connected

on YouTube or follow the link in the

description below. So, let's talk about

other things outside of AI that we can

do to have good, healthy brains. Based

on everything you know about how the

brain works.

Um let's start with children. I'm hoping

to be a father at some point in the next

next couple of months or years or

whatever God God grants me a child. Um

what should I be thinking about with my

child's brain to make sure it's healthy?

>> To get your body and your partner's body

as healthy as you can before you

conceive. Cuz there's a concept

I like called brain reserve. Brain

reserve is the extra function tissue you

have to deal with whatever stress comes

your way. And it starts from the health

of the egg and the health of the sperm

that create the baby. So, there things

you guys can do now that would be really

helpful. And then once your partner is

pregnant, you want to not put her under

a lot of stress

because her body's health while she's

creating the baby.

I mean, the babies eat the brain starts

to develop I think day 21. So, even

before you know she's pregnant, the

baby's brain is developing. So,

knowing you, intentional, purposeful,

it's like, let's live as cleanly as we

can. I think that gives the baby a head

start. And then you think about what to

feed the baby. You think about what the

baby's exposed to and what the baby

needs most is mom's and your time and

eye contact and cuddling and singing and

it's like those are

>> Touching is really important. Well, but

there's another fact there was a study

that was done on

the impact of how many words are spoken.

You know, there when a a baby and a

child even when you know, baby doesn't

speak, you know, until like 18 months.

Uh but it turns out that the words that

you are talking to the baby are going

into the brain and have an impact. Every

and and and in families that don't talk,

they do worse at school.

Unfortunately, a lot of poor families uh

but but that's really important is that

they they they have they're exposed to

language early and abundantly.

>> And you model. I mean, it's the one big

thing. Whatever you want the baby to

grow into, every day you are modeling

health or you are modeling illness just

by what you do, by what you say, by how

you treat the baby's mother.

Um

I have a book called Raising Mentally

Strong Kids, which I'm very happy about.

Um

and it starts with what kind of dad do I

want to be and what kind of child do I

want to raise. And

bonding, you want your child to pick

your values.

Then bonding is time, actual physical

time.

And listening. Like being And that's

what AI does, I think. It'll actually

listen without interrupting you

and try to reflect back what you're

hearing and then give you some positive

input. Too often, because of screens,

parents aren't listening, their heads

are in their phones, and everybody's

distracted. You see it whenever you go

to a restaurant. It's like everybody's

on their phone, and nobody's looking at

each other.

>> Are we raising mentally weak kids

because we're there's a culture now of

like helping them too much?

Doing too much for them.

>> This generation is the most in trouble

in history.

And we have to really ask ourselves why.

From the food we feed them to the

devices they look at, to the negative

news, the polarization

of the news. It's that sort of chronic

cortisol. And then the separation,

oh, you voted this way or you voted that

way. Saw something TV this morning if

somebody

voted one way, well, you shouldn't spend

time with them. I'm like, we're already

so lonely that now you're going to cut

off 50% of the population. It's like

it's just such stupidity.

>> Do you think much about the the impact

that religion and having a belief in

some kind of transcendent thing has on

the brain and psychology and psychiatry

generally?

>> you don't believe in God, you're three

times the risk of depression.

Yeah, God in

different ways.

>> transcendent or

>> Yes. If you believe you're here by Just

think about it with me. If you believe

you're just here by random chance, that

life really was not created and has no

meaning, there's existential

nothingness to that.

As opposed to, oh, no, I'm created in a

special way to do something purposeful

on Earth. There's purposeful people live

longer, they're happier.

Now, whatever

version

you believe,

to not believe is hard for the brain.

And there's an interesting study on

believers versus non-believers. And you

know, many scientists would go, well,

they'll have smaller brains if they're a

believer. They actually bigger temporal

lobes. And temporal lobes, underneath

your temples and behind your eyes.

Right here.

Um

that's where it's called the God area

because um that's where people think

they experience them.

>> And and if you have a seizure in the

temporal lobe, you you have transcendent

experiences like you're

um

uh uh you know, in the presence of God.

>> And they think maybe the Apostle Paul on

the road to Damascus had a seizure and

saw God. There's actually a

uh researcher in Canada, uh Laurentian

University, Michael Persinger. So, he

would stimulate the outside

He He would do it all over the brain,

but what he found he stimulated the

outside of the right temporal lobe, that

people would get a sensed presence. They

would actually feel the presence of God

in the room. So, does that being the

brain makes up God, or does that mean

there's a way for God to communicate

with us? I actually did a study on

prayer. It was so interesting. You know,

I pray for you, uh prophecy, something

called speaking in tongues. Um it was

fascinating. Speaking in tongues is

channeling. It means you're channeling

the Holy Spirit. And the hypothesis was

you'd have to drop your frontal lobes,

which is exactly what happened in 60%

of our patients. And one, basal ganglia

skyrocketed, just like got hit with

cocaine. Cuz that's where cocaine works

in the basal ganglia.

Uh

so interesting.

>> If you had to create a brain-healthy

nation and I made you president of the

United States

for 1 month,

and you had to put in place executive

orders

that would create a brain-healthy

nation, what executive orders would you

immediately sign?

>> One question.

Get all of the departments ask

themselves, what we're doing is this

good for our brains or bad for it?

And so I that's the campaign. I mean, I

realize I've been doing this a very long

time. If I can just get people to answer

that one question with information

and love, love of themselves, love of

their families, love of their country.

Is this as what we're doing good for our

brains or bad for it?

>> By far, the best drug you can take for

your brain, and not just your brain, but

your entire body is exercise.

In other words,

exercise

you pump the blood and your brain gets

you know,

a lot of nutrients and everything.

It helps your heart, it helps your

immune system. People don't realize how

important that is. And we're not talking

about being an athlete, we're just

talking about walking if you're older.

Walking is perfectly good exercise.

And and you know, children now, I you

know, they're they're not getting enough

exercise.

>> they're on devices.

>> Yeah.

>> And so I have a model, if you want to

keep your brain healthy or rescue it,

you have to prevent or treat the 11

major risk factors. And we've talked

about them before.

Exercise helps you with every single

one. So like, it's called bright minds.

So B is for blood flow, increases blood

flow. Retirement and aging, it decreases

your age. I is inflammation, it's

anti-inflammatory. G is genetics, it

helps turn on health-promoting

genes. H is head trauma. If you keep

walking, you're less likely to fall when

you're older, right? T is toxins, sweat

detoxifies you. M is mental health,

exercise boosts dopamine, but it also

boosts serotonin. So, it's like that

perfect balance or in your brain.

>> Breathing, how we breathe.

Does that have an impact on brain

health?

>> So, you can almost immediately improve

heart rate variability, which is a sign

of heart health, but also goes to mental

health by breathing

in a certain helpful way. And I call it

the 15-second breath. So, 4 seconds in,

big breath, hold it for a second and a

half, pause just a little bit,

8 seconds out, hold it for a second and

a half. So, if you take twice as long to

breathe out as you breathe in, it

increases something called

parasympathetic tone.

And it just calms you down almost

immediately. So, if you're having panic

attacks, yes, you can take Xanax, but

there's so many problems with that later

on. Or you can just learn how to

breathe. We call it diaphragmatic, so

breathe mostly with your belly, taking

twice as long to breathe out as you

breathe in.

>> Chewing.

Uh there's a

piece here that says it stimulates

hippocampal activity and may slow

cognitive decline. Reducing chewing has

been linked to impaired learning in

animal studies.

>> And fast food decreases chewing because

it's fast, so they take most of the

fiber out so you can chew it faster or

you can swallow it faster.

>> Things in the bad for your brain list.

Overuse of GPS navigation app, which

weakens the hippocampus by outsourcing

spatial memory long-term. This can lead

to atrophy in areas associated with

memory and navigation.

>> And people are diagnosed with

Alzheimer's disease later in life

because of Siri.

Because I used to like when I started as

young psychiatrist, somebody get lost in

a city they'd lived in for 30 years and

their family would call me upset.

And I'm like, okay, this person's headed

toward dementia. Now that person goes,

take me home. Do you think it's going to

have we're going to have an epigenetic

effect

of not reading maps? That if Steven, now

he uses his phone to get from A to B, do

you think that's going to affect

Steven's son or daughter

because dad

didn't have

>> Wow, okay, that that never occurred to

me that you could pass on something like

that. By the way, I I think it has to be

physiological. Stress, for example,

could be probably passed on. You

mentioned this. You you pointed out

during pregnancy you you want to prevent

stress and and crisis, right?

Do Do you know about

>> that study with mice where they made

them afraid of the scent of cherry

blossoms from memory and

so whenever the mice smelled

cherry blossoms, they would shock them.

Mildly. So the mice are now afraid of

the scent of cherry blossoms.

Their babies were afraid of the scent of

cherry blossoms. Their grand babies were

afraid of the scent of cherry blossoms.

So

>> that's the olfactory system. Olfactory

system is very interesting because it

goes directly to the hippocampus.

But there might be an evolutionary

advantage because if if there's

something in the environment that you

shouldn't eat or you know that smells a

particular way, passing that on is is a

very efficient instead of having to have

experience that yourself, you know,

trial and error because it might if a

poison is, right? It might kill you. But

if if you've your parents

had that bad experience and passed it on

to you shouldn't go to the something

that smells in a particular way, that

makes sense.

>> The other thing that's bad for the

brain, which is unexpected, is you said

at the start, artificial sweetness.

Now, I didn't think I thought artificial

sweeteners were fine.

>> They're not fine, and they're not free.

So, I used to drink diet soda like it

was my best friend, cuz I thought it was

free.

Um then I had arthritis when I was 35,

and one of my patients said she stopped

aspartame and her arthritis went away.

And I'm like cuz I was drinking like I

don't know.

A lot of diet soda, and so I stopped,

and my arthritis went away. And I'm

like, no. And so I did it again, and it

came back, and I'm like, okay.

And

artificial sweeteners can change the

microbiome. So, we haven't talked about

that, but you have these 100 trillion

bugs in your gut that make

neurotransmitters, digest your food, and

especially sucralose or Splenda has been

found to decrease the good bacteria in

your gut, which then has a negative

impact on brain function.

>> It is aspartame, as you mentioned.

>> And aspartame that I mentioned that can

have a generational impact. So, is it

possible it's really not social media,

it's that we've had aspartame in our

food

for decades. And I think it's

all of these things that just sort of

are additive, and we should just always

think that that one question. Is this

good for my brain or bad? For you

mention broccoli, probably that's good

for your brain.

Cheeseburger, probably not, but why

don't you take the burger, and if you

could make it grass-fed, that would be

better, and put it in a salad, and then

that would be good for your brain.

>> What about chronic background noise?

We don't think much about the impact

noise has, but

>> I used to live, um my house was three

houses from the freeway. And if you just

go there, it's like, "My god, it's so

loud here." I never heard the freeway

because my brain just learned to tune it

out.

>> By the way, was that good or bad for

you?

>> That I was able to

>> had you adapted and and were no longer

sensitive to it. I I I think that

actually was probably not good

for for various reasons because it what

it really means is that you you're

you're specializing for that

environment. And your brain's going to

be different when you go someplace.

So but so here's a here's another

example.

>> stressful.

Right?

>> Yes, chronically stressful, but my brain

is very good at tuning out.

>> But in the background in the In other

words, yeah, in other words, your your

your your brain is reacting to it even

though you're not aware of it, you know.